


if you're looking for devotion

by lost_decade



Category: Formula E RPF
Genre: Angst, Freeform, Friendship, Implied Relationships, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_decade/pseuds/lost_decade
Summary: Occasionally, Jean-Eric stays over in Sam's hotel room.He stays because his own hotel is two blocks over and it’s three in the morning, because he drank too much at the after-party and left his stupid expensive jacket behind in the back of the cab (Sam offers to lend him one of his and of course it’s a joke that they both smile through - not laugh, because Jean-Eric doesn't ever seem to do that anymore - but only half a joke really).





	if you're looking for devotion

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from but suddenly it was in my head and I had to frantically write it in my lunch break. 
> 
> Title from Show me Love by Robin S.

Occasionally, Jean-Eric stays over in Sam's hotel room.

He stays because his own hotel is two blocks over and it’s three in the morning, because he drank too much at the after-party and left his stupid expensive jacket behind in the back of the cab (Sam offers to lend him one of his and of course it’s a joke that they both smile through - not laugh, because Jean-Eric doesn't ever seem to do that anymore - but only half a joke really). Sometimes he stays because friends look out for each other and Jev needs a friend, and maybe he recognises there's something nameless that Sam needs too.

More to the point, Sam would never let him go home alone when he’s pissed up and not making sense, gesticulating wildly about how many more points he scored than Daniel, than Daniil, about how he has no one who cares - even Petra’s given up on his miserable arse by now. Sam cares. Sam watches as he stumbles through the season trying to make sense of where he is and where he used to be, the juxtaposition between the two.

Friends look out for each other, that’s all. That’s what Sam’s doing. And no one else seems to get Jean-Eric really, his moods and his temperament, arch French moping - the way he seems to get lost in his head sometimes. Sam gets it because he always has, because they've known each other forever and he isn’t about to stop giving a shit now. It’s small things like taking him out for a beer, buying him dinner sometimes just to make sure the idiot is actually eating something.

-

Sam’s heart lifts when Jean-Eric ends up on the other side of the DS Virgin garage, as if having him closer will make a difference somehow. It’s the same as anyone would do for their mates, Sam rationalises when he falls asleep holding Jev’s hand in the hospital when he’s so sick from food poisoning in Buenos Aires that year that the team don’t want him to race, Alex emphatically telling him he can’t. Jev being Jev, ignores them all and races anyway, a look in his eyes as they walk to the grid that makes Sam afraid.

Sam can’t do much in the overall scheme of things, can’t fix what happened to him in F1, repair the heartbreak and the loss.

“I think he deleted my number,” Jean-Eric slurs, glassy-eyed and anguished into Sam’s ear, in the corner of some bar in some city or other, and Sam doesn’t even need to ask who he’s talking about. Honestly he wants to give Jev a proper talking to, tell the Frenchman to pull himself the fuck together and move on. His blood is half champagne by this point in the night though, so instead he gets them both out of there, instead he presses his lips to Jean-Eric’s and the two of them become an extension of what they already are.

-

They're not teammates anymore and that's okay, because Jev seems happier. At least, Sam thinks he is, some peace in his eyes that wasn't there before. Still, Sam’s bed stays occupied and it's easy to explain away the meaning to himself. Sometimes Sam twists his head to look round at Jev, catches his eye just as Jev is drifting to sleep, his chest pressed warm against Sam's back, beard soft against his shoulder.

He starts to think that maybe this isn't just about what Jean-Eric needs anymore.

-

They get a podium together in New York that year, their arms around each other and Jev's hair dripping with champagne as they embrace. Sam sees the happiness in his eyes and tells himself that in part, just a little bit of it is related to him.

Later, after the next race and the party, after their own private celebration, much later - when the Manhattan dawn is rising and the stars are giving way to the first blue light, Sam wakes, parched and still on the fringes of sleep, pushed to the very edge of the bed as always because not only is Jev a duvet stealer but he somehow also manages to take up the entirety of a king sized bed without even trying.

Sam nudges one of his legs out of the way a little, smiling in spite of himself. They've kicked the covers off during the night, or else it wouldn't be such a mesmerising sight - Jean-Eric lying on his back, face relaxed with sleep and the length of his body completely on display, lithe and loose-limbed. The soft light from around the edges of the curtains washes over his naked skin, something almost ethereal that makes Sam's chest tighten with a feeling he can't avoid. He props himself up on one elbow, letting his gaze linger in a way he never would were Jean-Eric awake, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath, glancing down to where his cock lies soft against his thigh and remembering how just a few hours earlier his mouth had been around it, how Jev had cursed and whined, the French always sounding so much more filthy and impassioned from his lips than from anyone else's.

Sam swallows back the lump in his throat and slips out of bed, pulling the sheet up to cover Jean-Eric, grabbing a pillow and some sweatpants and going through to sleep on the sofa instead.

He’ll give it the summer, some time apart - some perspective.

-

In Hong Kong they share a podium again, Jean-Eric sweaty and exhilarated, lifting Sam up in celebration. Something in his smile is lighter, as if he’s let go of some old hurt. At the party they get drunk together, they dance badly until they’re dizzy and collapse into a booth with their thighs pressed close.

“Thank you,” Jean-Eric whispers in Sam’s ear, squeezing his shoulder affectionately, and Sam both does and doesn’t know what he means by it.

When Jean-Eric leaves at the end of the night, it’s Lotterer whose arm is around his waist, Lotterer who becomes a permanent fixture at his side as the year goes by. Sam gets the bed to himself now, he’s no longer woken up by Jev’s awful snoring and he doesn’t worry about whether he’s eating enough during the off-season.

He gets used to it, eventually – having just a friend and not a lover. It isn’t a regret.     


End file.
